Google “not optimistic” Apple will approve its upcoming iOS maps app

But the company is trying to build one anyway.

Google is still forging ahead with plans to make a native Google Maps iOS app, despite the fact that those inside the company are "not optimistic" Apple would approve it. At least one source reported to the Guardian that prospects might be better now that former SVP of iOS software Scott Forstall has effectively been shown the door, but the company appears to believe a Google Maps app appearing in the App Store anytime soon would be "an unlikely event."

When Apple released iOS 6 with a redesigned Maps app that uses Apple's own mapping data sources, we complained that the lack of built-in transit information and less-than-perfect data were a problem. And though most users haven't been put off by the issues, plenty of people had enough problems that Apple CEO Tim Cook apologized for the state of the app on release, and promised fixes were coming.

In the meantime, Apple has promoted several Maps alternatives in the App Store, as well as pointing to Web-based options such as those from Google and Nokia. According to the Guardian's sources, though, none of the apps Apple is promoting in the App Store use Google's APIs to access its store of location, routing, or point-of-interest data.

We tested a few of the Maps alternatives, and found Google's Web-based Google Maps to offer the missing data and transit directions that Apple's own Maps currently lacks. However, the interface is relatively cumbersome, and doesn't integrate with Siri or iOS 6's turn-by-turn navigation.

Though it hasn't publicly stated its plans, Google has apparently been working on its own mapping app for iOS since this summer and plans to have it ready to ship before the end of the year. However, inside the company there's little hope for Apple approval. Instead, Apple is expected to "keep moving forward in an effort to make its obviously inferior product better," and "save face" with the public.

I'm pretty sure they'll approve it. What percentage of users are likely to look for alternatives to pre-installed apps? I'm guessing it's a small percentage. Apple has more to lose by blocking Google's app -- in the PR issue it'd generate -- than by accepting it.

An interesting comment. On the one hand it could just be one employee letting off steam or leaking a detail they shouldn't, or it could be a clever ploy to raise public awareness of the app approval issue.

The latter would allow Google to say "we built an app, but Apple is blocking it's release" and put the ball in Apple's side of the court to repsond. They probably wouldn't respond directly to it, but it does raise awareness that the platform is 'closed' 'controlled.'

I don't see there being an outright 'denied' coming from Apple, but instead a drawn out process that allows them to keep improving their own product. They will approve the Google Maps app when they feel more confident in their own product maybe.

From what I can gather, the gist of the argument seems to be, "Apple's not promoting apps that use our API that it let into the App Store, so it's unlikely that they'll let our app in." Seems like quite a leap. I'd be shocked if Apple rejected it.

Didn't Apple hold up the approval of Google Voice based upon the notion that it would confuse users with duplicate functionality? Then third party Google voice apps were approved and then only after that was the Google built google Voice app approved.

I agree that Google appears to be needlessly banging a drum but they ultimately may have a point. Hasn't Apple refused to approve apps that duplicate functionality of the core OS? IIRC they denied Google Voice for awhile.

So Apple doesn't want Gmaps on it's phone because why? People won't use Apple maps? Ok, well make a better product then. I fail to see how this is in the best interest of their consumers.

Apple have always had a thing about banning apps from its store that "compete" with its own offerings - it was particularly evident in the earlier days of iOS, though they may have been letting things slide since (I switched to Android a couple of years ago so I'm not in the loop). They may choose to invoke the non-competition clause again if Google submits its own Maps app, so their fears are well-founded.

Unless they use a private API (or really invade the users privacy) they should be fine. They might include something like that though just to say that they got rejected and drag the whole thing a little longer...

I wonder if the Google Maps team are planning a release with features they know violate the TOS and are trying to drum up public support and force the issue? Otherwise it seems a strange statement to make in light of all the existing Google and Maps Apps in the App Store.

They simply want to stir up some controversy. Come back when Apple does deny your app, although I have no doubt Apple will approve it (unless Google does something fishy on purpose to get it rejected). Apple doesn't need the bad press and will approve it (like other mapping solutions). Google just wants a free shot.

They alllowed competitors' maps apps as well as the new Google app that sports some Siri-like functionality (although they seem to have stallled that one for a bit first), so I don't see how they could refuse a maps app, as long as Google is playing by the rules of the API.

Yes, I'm sure you know better than the world-class engineers at Google how much time it takes to do this. "Software development is easy" and other such tired myths are only repeated by those ignorant of the challenges of developing software.

"Porting an app" is not done by flipping a magic switch in the source code from [Android] to [iOS] and clicking build. It requires re-doing the application in an entirely different language. I think its a pretty safe bet to say the Android maps app was written in Android's native Java, meaning very little (if any) of the application code can be re-used. The server code won't need to change, but we aren't talking about a thin client like a web app. As I'm sure you've seen, the web version of Google Maps on iOS's browser is less than stellar.

So Apple doesn't want Gmaps on it's phone because why? People won't use Apple maps? Ok, well make a better product then. I fail to see how this is in the best interest of their consumers.

Apple have always had a thing about banning apps from its store that "compete" with its own offerings - it was particularly evident in the earlier days of iOS, though they may have been letting things slide since (I switched to Android a couple of years ago so I'm not in the loop). They may choose to invoke the non-competition clause again if Google submits its own Maps app, so their fears are well-founded.

This was true for the first year or two of the App Store's life, but these days you no longer see apps rejected because they conflict with built-in functionality. There are dozens (hundreds?) of alternate browsers, calculators, map apps, reminder tools, weather apps, calendar apps, etc.

Google is scaremongering here. Apple is clearly on the defensive regarding maps and would not risk any further bad press. If Google releases an app, I am sure it would be approved right away.

Another possibility is that Apple is promoting apps that don't use Google's maps simply because most 3rd party apps in the candidate pool don't use Google.

Recall that Google jacked up the price of API access back in March, and its now quite a bit more pricey than other sources of data. It didn't go over well, and they backed off (somewhat) a few months later, but quite a few users jumped ship.

So Apple doesn't want Gmaps on it's phone because why? People won't use Apple maps? Ok, well make a better product then. I fail to see how this is in the best interest of their consumers.

Interesting how you assume that Apple doesn't want Google Maps on the iPhone. I don't think anyone has stated this outright; at this time it is just speculation on Google's part.

I would love to see Maps back on the iPhone but without implementing SIRI and navigation, I'm not sure how useful I would find it.

This is what I wonder. If Google Maps will be the same as before or if they will FINALLY improve it. They pretty much have to at this point considering the pros of Apple Maps over previous Google powered maps (vector imaging, turn by turn, etc...). Apple Maps isn't perfect, but it is a hell of a lot better in most regards.

I don't see there being an outright 'denied' coming from Apple, but instead a drawn out process that allows them to keep improving their own product.

This is the really interesting possibility. Not that Apple would outright reject a Google Maps app; but that it would handicap it by leaving it in the queue for a few weeks. Perhaps Apple stalls with a couple lawyerly little rejections that aren't hard for Google to fix, but reset the review clock each time. With an average of 9 day review times and a bit of back-and-forth in between, Apple could easily carve out an extra month for its maps team to make more improvements.

Most likely Google is bringing this forward so that the user backlash can happen now to get it approved rather than submitting it when its done and then waiting for the backlash to build to get it approved. From Apples perspective, if it works and works well, it'll have to be a bit like eating crow.

Myself, I just hope that they resolve this soon since I've been sticking with iOS 5.1.1 since I can't really afford to lose the public transit information and I'm not going to use a clunky web page just to update. While the SJ Transit app on the iOS store is decent it also depends upon the Google Maps functionality.

Meanwhile, I'll just wait and see how things go and if Apple can't pull it's finger out of it's butt to fix this maybe it really is time to jump ship. It's pretty frigging sad when one of the top tech firms out there, who rake in boatloads of cash on a daily basis, can't seem to get it's act together to put out a stinking Map app that can compete with one from Google.

This is just pure bullshit, they don't even have an App, nor a rejection from Apple and still they are basically accusing Apple of having a bias against their contribution.

It also makes very little sense for Apple to reject them, it would merely be bad PR for them on top of the Apple Maps PR fiasko which they do not need, as well as opening them to government investigation.

This is just Google being emo. Frankly the world should have collectively just told Google to shut up in this case or better yet ridicule them publicly for such inane behavior.

So Apple doesn't want Gmaps on it's phone because why? People won't use Apple maps? Ok, well make a better product then. I fail to see how this is in the best interest of their consumers.

Apple have always had a thing about banning apps from its store that "compete" with its own offerings - it was particularly evident in the earlier days of iOS, though they may have been letting things slide since (I switched to Android a couple of years ago so I'm not in the loop). They may choose to invoke the non-competition clause again if Google submits its own Maps app, so their fears are well-founded.

This was true for the first year or two of the App Store's life, but these days you no longer see apps rejected because they conflict with built-in functionality. There are dozens (hundreds?) of alternate browsers, calculators, map apps, reminder tools, weather apps, calendar apps, etc.

Google is scaremongering here. Apple is clearly on the defensive regarding maps and would not risk any further bad press. If Google releases an app, I am sure it would be approved right away.

Agreed. The only few "don't replace functionality" apps that remain are the dialer, the contacts app, and the default mail app. Most other things have slowly but surely come out as Apple finished typinc ogg and securing API access to core services. Prior a lot of the prohibition against apps was that apple's own core services were still in flux moving from a no-3rd-party to open apps models, combined with some licensing and royalty issues that were complicated. most of that is now gone, the basic rules today boil down to don't steal IP, Don't break the law, don't violate carrier policies, write stable code, and provide something useful. Fill that, and you;re in.

Yes, I'm sure you know better than the world-class engineers at Google how much time it takes to do this. "Software development is easy" and other such tired myths are only repeated by those ignorant of the challenges of developing software.

"Porting an app" is not done by flipping a magic switch in the source code from [Android] to [iOS] and clicking build. It requires re-doing the application in an entirely different language. I think its a pretty safe bet to say the Android maps app was written in Android's native Java, meaning very little (if any) of the application code can be re-used. The server code won't need to change, but we aren't talking about a thin client like a web app. As I'm sure you've seen, the web version of Google Maps on iOS's browser is less than stellar.

I think this is baloney, because this would not be Google's first iOS app, in addition to which most of the maps app intelligence (or lack thereof) is on the server and in the data. I write software every day, so I have some idea of the challenges involved.

So Apple doesn't want Gmaps on it's phone because why? People won't use Apple maps? Ok, well make a better product then. I fail to see how this is in the best interest of their consumers.

Apple have always had a thing about banning apps from its store that "compete" with its own offerings - it was particularly evident in the earlier days of iOS, though they may have been letting things slide since (I switched to Android a couple of years ago so I'm not in the loop). They may choose to invoke the non-competition clause again if Google submits its own Maps app, so their fears are well-founded.

Apple hasn't banned an app for duplicate functionality since 2009, and there are not only a number of apps that offer duplicate functionality already, but there are many Google apps that do: see Gmail, Google Voice, and the lates version of the Google search app that has functionality akin to Siri.

Most likely Google is bringing this forward so that the user backlash can happen now to get it approved rather than submitting it when its done and then waiting for the backlash to build to get it approved. From Apples perspective, if it works and works well, it'll have to be a bit like eating crow.

First off, Apple didn't dump google to get rid of them on principle/competition reason, Google's contract with apple was expiring and GOOGLE wanted out. Apple had to do it now as it;s a core service, and it was either going to be in iOS 6, or iOS 7 had to be finished and released by June 2013, which is too soon, so Google had to go now to avoid issues later.

Now, also keep in mind, Google charges for their access. WQith the web they run ads, but in the app they won;t be able to. Android doesn't get Google maps free, the handset makers PAY google for it. If google released maps to iOS, they either need to figure out an ad model (unlikely to be popular), charge for it (unlikely to haoppen), piss off all the android vendors in the process and end up negotiating maps royalities again (bad for stocks), or, round up the rumor machine, and tie services and APIs to their app they KNOW apple will refuse (aka, break the sandbox rule or use private APIs), and then blame apple for not having maps on iOS until apple pays up (a hail mary play).

If someone needs turn by turn, and they are on Verizon, doesn't VZ Navigator offer this? Is it available on the iPhone? I have some friends who think it is a great app! I haven't used it myself though.

Apple letting that app in is the same as them saying they can't do it better. Apple will block the app and improve their own. Google has been aligning itself against Apple for half of a decade, I don't see why Apple would play nice with them now.

Right, the same reason they blocked Google Voice (initially it was AT&T's contractual terms that forced apple to block GV under the do-not-redirect-SMS-service-fees rules in their contract, those were later lifted after Android was released), Google Search (which now has voice functions that compete with Siri), Google Earth, Google+, the Chrome browser, Google Drive, Google Translate, GMAIL, etc.

Apple doens't CARE to "do it better" They care to be the EXAMPLE, create the APIs for 3rd parties to leverage, then ENCOURAGE 3rd parties to themselves do it better.

And yes, Apple will improve their own (actually, other than the lack of public transit and walking directions, I actually like it better than maps), thay're constantly improving the service-side system, which doesn't require and pushed updates to use, and it's a LOT better than it was at launch. They'll also keep adding features with each release, and adding more API integration for more 3rd party support, but again, Apple's app is not about being perfect, it's about being the SOURCE of those APIs. Apple likes its 3rd party partners to make money because it makes THEM money. If maps was perfect, and free, apple ends up paying to support it. If Maps is a good API stack, and 3rd parties SELL apps that use it (some will always be free), then apple gets 30%, and less server load on top. Why would apple have any incentive to ensure nobody else was better????

At least with Android I can install apps elsewhere than just Google Play. If I were an Apple user, I'd be furious if they limited the choice of apps I can use on *my* hardware purely for competitive reasons.

At least with Android I can install apps elsewhere than just Google Play. If I were an Apple user, I'd be furious if they limited the choice of apps I can use on *my* hardware purely for competitive reasons.

...and security reasons, and performance reasons, and power consumption reasons, and simplicity reasons.

If Google's Maps navigated me to Hackensack when I try to figure out which subway to take to get somewhere in the lower east side from queens, I could see them rejecting it based on duplication of functionality. Heyoooo!